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Why I Prefer In Person School

January 17, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Lia Dunakin

Staff Writer

Students wearing masks while in school. Photo courtesy of BBC.

From the very first minute of the day, School this year is radically different from last year.

Last year, I would just get out of bed a few minutes before school started since there was no travel time. Sometimes I would eat my breakfast or have a snack. This year, I have to wake up at 6:30 instead of 8:30, I get out of bed, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, and leave the house. Take the bus. Take the subway. Walk to school.

Like many teenagers, I liked being able to wake up at a later time because of the lack of commuting, Not having to travel the 40 minutes from school to my house, I had more time to do my homework since I was at home all day. It was much easier to manage my time since I didn’t have any after school activities that I had to get to, because they were all online. Although, I do think online school affected my quality of work, since it tired me out more.

When you compare these two morning routines, , it may seem like I liked virtual learning better than in person school, but that is not true. Despite all the aspects I did like about doing school at home, being able to see my classmates in person is better.

Things have changed in our classes, too. . Last year was an exception from everything I was used to. It’s not usually just the teacher talking to you. There’s students waiting to ask or answer questions. The teacher isn’t just talking to you, now the classes are interactive again. Also, in breakout rooms there was usually minimal talking, now that we can see each other again face to face, it’s much easier to communicate in groups. This makes it easier to complete group assignments.

It was harder to focus in class last year, because all you would hear was the teacher’s voice. This year, you can do activities with your classmates that may help you better understand the topic. That learning environment of just hearing lectures and finishing your assignments was not the best for me, and I know I am not the only one with this opinion. I remember I would talk to my friends about shared experiences in break out rooms. Also having a sense of relief when you knew someone in your breakout room, and that it meant they would actually talk.

I am so glad that this year we got to go to the building this year and have the closest to normal we possibly could this year.

The biggest benefit to in-person school is communication. It’s not just being able to work in teams and talk to people, but also having spaces to just relax around the building while you’re not in class helps immensely. While at home, you don’t have places to just hang out.

I will take the social connections over sleeping late, any day.

This year is a lot better than last year and I hope it can continue being an in person school year!

Why I Enjoyed Online School

January 13, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Leo Braveman

Staff Writer

Sophomore Biran Mahmoud working from his computer

Back last year we had to have almost the whole year be online . I found my rithim and actually enjoyed online school. Usually when online school is brought up I hear about strong negative opinions – “it was so hard to learn, “I just coulden’t focus” or “it was just so boring” but I had a different experience.

To start I got to wake up at basically 9 am, and I didin’t have to commute to shcool. Classes were sometimes tough, and I did have technology rage to be fair, but when I had a problem my teacher would be understanding and I could normally find a solution. Secondly, breaks were amazing!! Whenever I had a long lunch break it was so nice to be at my house for it. I could take a nap, do school work, eat lunch, go on my phone and even go to the park with my friend. Finally, my favorite part of online school was being at home, although there were cons like not being as social, being at my own desk with more space felt like the nicest thing ever.

Because of this when I heard septa was planning a strike I was ecstatic. This meant all the old things for me, with more benchmark work time added, and I even made goals like going to the park everyday and going to the gym everyday. Although this didin’t happen I think school should think about the benefits of working from home. Maybe more study periods could be added, where kids could get work done and bounce from class to class. Or maybe kids could get out early on days where they had an advisory, if they were going home early for a purpose.

Swim Team Manages Season During COVID-19

January 13, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Valeria Escobar

Staff Writer

The Swimming team is back for its second year at SLA, but with continued COVID-19 precautions and other challenges.

Even though COVID affects the swim team and their practices, there’s around 20 students who still participate and choose to be a part of the team. Sophomore student athlete Toby Hilton, who has been part of the team since his Freshman year, said that swimming is complicated and he likes doing activities that require hard work. It gives him motivation to become a better swimmer and to work harder in and outside the pool. Sophomore student athlete Eric Perez joined the swim team this year and even though this year’s swim season may be difficult, Perez enjoys being part of the team and he wants to participate in future swim seasons as well.

SLA Special Education Teacher and Swim Coach Elizabeth Menasion explained that there’s a lack of practice space which can complicate practices. “The thing that does impact how the athletes perform is access to practice space,” she said. SLA as well as various other teams hold practices at the YMCA pool on Broad Street.

The pools previously used by schools that have swim teams have not been maintained partially due to Covid, which requires teams to share resources. Sometimes that means practices are crowded.

In addition to the crunch for space, other COVID safety precautions present disadvantages to the team, although most of them don’t impact the way the swimmers perform in the water.

Toby Hilton brought up how masks play a big role at practices. “Before covid happened, people would usually walk around the pools without masks before they got in but now you usually have to wear a mask before you get in.”. Unlike what Hilton said, Perez thinks differently about the role masks play at practices. “Nobody really uses their masks on deck, (COVID precautions) should be more strict.” Perez said.

Ms. Menasion echoed Hilton’s point, adding that it’s really hard for athletes, coaches, and staff to wear masks on deck since the rooms are climate controlled, which means they’re really hot. “For me as the coach, it’s extra difficult to make sure everyone hears me in the pool when they need to and I’m wearing a mask and talking a lot louder and it’s very hot,” she said.

The season recently started, and on their first meet against Central High School, the boys team won with 86 points. The Girls’ team scored 68 points, which was not enough to win but had some first, second, and third place wins. The team also has district qualifiers already. This was the first meet for the majority of the team. Even though other meets have been cancelled because of COVID cases, I’m excited to see how the team performs in future meets.

As the Swim team continues to become accommodated with the COVID precautions, Ms. Menasion, as well as everyone else in the team, don’t know if the precautions are gonna become more strict if cases rise. However, as of January, the swim team is still going strong.

COVID – Is it really that bad?

January 13, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock

Staff Writer

COVID has been on everyone’s mind for the past year. Some people are scared, while others are not worried about it at all. So, is it really that bad?

Last January, I tested positive for COVID-19.

For the 10 days I had to quarantine, my symptoms weren’t great, but they also weren’t as bad as I expected. The worst symptoms were the headache and finding it hard to breathe. I didn’t even get a cough or congestion, which I found strange. I was exhausted most of the time.

Fortunately, online school meant I didn’t have to miss any of my classes. On the one day when it felt the worst, day 5, I took off from school and slept in. It was pretty easy to keep up with schoolwork while sick, because there wasn’t much work and I wasn’t that sick.

The one symptom that stuck around for the longest was my loss of smell, which started Around the fourth day of having COVID. It was super strange, losing something that I was accustomed to. I ate mints until I got it back.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same for my smell. That didn’t come back for three months.. I didn’t really know what to do about it, and it wasn’t a crazy inconvenience, so I didn’t care, but it was strange. Even stranger was how all of a sudden, on a random day in May, I got my sense of smell back. It returned out of nowhere, I just woke up and I could smell again. I didn’t really notice at first, but I grabbed an orange and noticed I could smell it.

When I got my vaccine in late May, the doctor said that it would be a different experience since I had gotten COVID. Basically, it would feel like I had COVID again. When I got my first vaccine dose, it was a Thursday. I felt fine the whole day, but the next day I felt horrible. To make things even more complicated, Friday was my first day of hybrid learning and I had to go into SLA for the first time while feeling terrible. I took Tylenol most of the day, which helped and I didn’t feel any symptoms. It went away after a day, and I felt normal the next day.

I had the same experience when I got my second dose of the vaccine. That time, I just stayed at home and rested.

Ever since getting COVID, I have still been careful about getting it again. You need to be cautious about the people around you, and make sure that you are doing your part to help get rid of COVID once and for all.

As for how it has changed me – it has taught me to be cautious of COVID, and I learned that I definitely do not want to get it again. To lose something and get it back teaches you how important it really was.

SLA Affirmations Scandal

January 13, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock

Staff Writer

In mid-November, the first SLA Affirmations Instagram page was created: @sla_affirmations. The next day, another one was created: @slaaffirmations, both run by different people.

On the surface, these accounts have the same intention and goal. So why two? Wasn’t one enough?

The first account, @sla_affirmations, was created by two freshmen, one of whom was Pax D’Alba. They created their first post on November 16, a post about the long and brutal walk to the sixth floor.

Many of their posts were about the day to day complaints about their time in school, such as the stairs, vending machine, and the posters around school. Both accounts were inspired by the Philly affirmations page, which started posting in early November. Ever since then, many schools created affirmation pages, such as Central and CAPA.

“I started off by following a bunch of people I knew [who] went to SLA and they followed back. Then [we] and the followers started sharing posts, more people started finding it and following it,” said D’Alba.

When asked about the second affirmations page, D’Alba was blasé. “It came after us and was posting similar things so it almost felt like competition, but I didn’t really care about it,” they said “We tried to stay away from harmful things, especially since we said who we were, and they posted more risky things. Whatever they did was their choice. It was just frustrating but then I didn’t really care.”

After only posting for a few days, the account stopped posting. D’Alba says the future of the account is still undetermined, but there will most likely not be any new posts.

The second account, @slaaffirmations, had its first post on November 17. They consistently posted for a few days as well, but stopped posting after about a week. The owner of the account has chosen to keep their name anonymous. Their content was similar, and about the same topics.

“I saw that the other SLA affirmations were run by freshmen and I thought that their affirmations weren’t that good. My friends and I had a ton of ideas for affirmations so I decided to make a separate page,” says @slaaffirmations.

This account does not look like it will be sticking around for much longer either. They don’t have the time or motivation to run the account anymore, but they enjoy seeing the other unique accounts popping up.

Both accounts wanted to stay anonymous, since they were afraid of getting in trouble with the school. In addition, both thought they could make better content, which is the reason for multiple accounts.

“I think the time of SLA affirmations has passed,” says sophomore Josie Barsky, “They were really popular for a hot second, but they’ve both stopped posting so there’s not much left of them.”

“Some are cool and funny. I think some are or could turn into something very toxic and harmful which is not good,” says D’Alba.

While none of the accounts ended up turning into something harmful, fear of getting in trouble drove both away. With both accounts inactive, it has left plenty of room for new SLA accounts to take the spotlight. The most popular, @sla_sleeps, is an account that compiles posts of students sleeping. There are also multiple SLA meme accounts, some new and some old.